Download

Delineating Surfaces

Thi Phuong-Trâm Nguyen

 

“We are more closely tied to the invisible than to the visible.”^[01]

Novalis, 1713, quoted in Marco Frascari, Monsters of Architecture, Anthropomorphism in Architectural Theory.

 

NOTES TO THE READER

This text is based on events that took place during a workshop organised by The Bartlett Drawing Research programme on the 6th of May, 2016. For the session, I proposed to delineate an anamorphic image following the Minim friar Jean-François Niceron’s (1613-1646) proposition from La Perspective curieuse. The first aim of this paper was to provide a record of the experience as it happened that afternoon, but while writing, it appears that my approach to the work has also become anamorphic. The text gradually became contaminated with the ambition and direction I wanted the workshop to take. Consequently, this piece does not describe exactly what happened during the workshop, but represents a version situated between the actual and the expected.

The paper takes the form of a script written in such a way as to convey the different voices and forces that influenced the project. The multiplicity of gazes in the anamorphic transformation developed into the various characters of the script. The persona of EYE_II, HAND_I, EYE_I, DRAUGHTSWOMEN and NARRATOR are condensed and fictionalised version of the researcher’s behaviour during the workshop.

Moreover, the act of writing this scenario, which recalls both ancient texts and the workshop, recreates the illusion that these texts and events are living, co-existent presences. I believe the gestures inherent in projective drawing operate in the same manner: they contain the sense of a co-habitation of space by existent and non-existing actors. Script and anamorphic image, simultaneously invoking presence and absence, ask to be completed through our encounter with them.

In Eros and The Bittersweet, Anne Carson notes the origins of the word reading in Greek: anagignoskein from ana-: again and -gignoskein: to know.^[02] Reading is to know again. Like anamorphosis, composed of ana-: again and -morphosis: take form, the idea of taking form again in action is essential. Meaning emerges from the encounter between the text and the reader, between the viewer and the image. Close and distant past are actualised and reconciled in the performance of the play in the present moment.

The premise of anamorphic drawing resides in the shattering of the first appearance of an image. There is an intertwining of the primary image and the apparition of another as the observer experiences the space within which the image is housed. A change of position produces a change in perception. Thus, anamorphic images represent the embodiment of the experience of vision in a perpetual state of becoming. The two images cannot exist at the same time for the same eye; there is no stillness in the anamorphic transformation. EYE_II separates into EYE_I and HAND_I to bring forth a dialogue between what is perceived and what is felt.

According to Jurgis Baltrušaitis, an art historian who wrote the first book on the development of anamorphic images, the earliest example known of this type of images is from Leonardo da Vinci’s Codex Atlanticus (1483-1518).^[03] Anamorphic images are a drawing projection technique that was developed in parallel with the science of perspective, and whose refinement culminates around the end of the 17th century. While perspective has evolved toward the use of geometry to represent the appearance of space on a flat plane as accurately as possible, anamorphic images use the same geometrical principles but carry them to an extreme, and instead create a break in the real. In anamorphic images, representation is not a perpendicular plane in front of the viewer but a diagonal cut in the cone of vision, allowing an entry into the space of vision.^[04]

Niceron wrote the first version of the treatise La Perspective Curieuse in 1638, in French. It was the first work entirely dedicated to anamorphosis. The book illustrated a concise method to draw perspectival images as well as anamorphic images. Niceron developed his fascination with this type of representation when he first saw the anamorphic mural painting of St-Francis de Paola in the Minim convent of Santa Trinità dei Monti in Rome. The mural was executed by the friar Emmanuel Maignan, and Niceron added the technique of its delineation to the second edition of his treatise in 1646. At that time, with the corresponding work of the friar Marin Mersenne, the convent was an important centre of scientific studies driven by the search for wonder. Niceron wrote in the preface that as to the practicality of the technique the reader must be ‘taking delight in seeing the possibilities beyond what they expect’.^[05]

The re-enactment of Niceron’s writings attempts to grasp what he saw beyond the expected. Anamorphic images open a space of desire for wonder manifested only in the physical encounter with the image. The anamorphic construction technique proposed by Niceron reveals to us the structure of vision, and most importantly allows us to occupy that structure. The doubling of the anamorphic gaze is reflected in the play between the existence of the text and the performance in this piece.

The script stands as a set of instructions, similar to the treatise left by Niceron, and aims to be re-enacted. The paper is put forward as something to be rehearsed; it is a perpetual work in progress emphasising the idea of repetition and the redundancy in the movement of drawing an anamorphic image. Back and forth, advancing and withdrawing, the performer is encouraged to add notes in the margins.

The notes that occupy the periphery of and intervene in the script are reflections on the workshop and trace the transformation from the workshop to the script. They also represent an interrogation of my own expectations while conducting the workshop. The images included depict the workshop conducted in May 2016, and the short film consists of selected scenes from the first rehearsal drawing of the script.

Through the dialogue and the stage directions the words established a sense of place, but also the boundaries of our experience. The text, similarly to the thread in the story, delineates the surfaces of things. As the story unfolds, we learn to know things without breaking them or tearing them apart, but by deforming them.

From a point on the primary image, the technique described by Niceron delineates its trajectory in space. The multiplication of projected point is recollected on a second displaced picture plane. The act of writing and drawing, of ex-pressing, is the release of a feeling inside pressing to go out. As in Johanna Malt’s description of the surface of contact in poetry in Leaving Traces, Surface Contact in Ponge, Penone and Alÿs, ‘the surface of things [is] a site of a coming into form’.^[06] The coming into form of this project is within the re-enactment, the actualisation of the text.

The surface is this place for the encounter. Through our contact with the surface, we become aware of our limit and of the other. The surface addressed in the story is not only the second picture plane but the surface on which we feel things. It is not just how the image is transformed, but how the performance of the transformation can in turn change the viewer.  This last protagonist in the work is not passive, but active in the construction of meanings. They are implicated in a chain of actions yet to be completed.


Young or old man but with a neutral look - He reads La Perspective curieuse in French, but he is neither Jean-François Niceron nor trying to act like him. The text recited by the NARRATOR belongs to another time. He is remote from the action, removed; his distance from us is the distance between the past and our experience of it.

Woman 55-70 years old – Her name, EYE_II, refers to the necessity of both eyes to perceive depth. EYE_II is the main instigator of the project. After finding the treatise La Perspective curieuse, written by Jean-François Niceron in 1638, she is setting up an apparatus to construct an anamorphic image. But, during the operation, she divides herself in two: EYE_I + HAND_I.


Young, confident man - Detached from EYE_II, EYE_I embodies the fixed eye looking into the single opening of the eyepiece. He portrays the Cartesian gaze and its desire to grasp and control vision. The eye of the beholder is an entity that dominates HAND_I in the conversation until HAND_I decides otherwise.

Young resolute woman with a dreamy look but a strong presence - HAND_I represents touch and how we perceive the world through our senses. The hand and the body are implied to be together. The name HAND_I is used because it represents the extremity of this entity. The hand is our desire to reach out when something moves us. The hands and the body possess the capacity to transform a feeling into an occupation of space.


An unknown man, maybe not part of the PhD programme, observed carefully and engaged with the others; Researcher_01 took control of the anamorphic transformation of the hand—she could be HAND_01.


They form a group of 7, mostly women. They are mute, but their presence expresses the multiplicity of perception. They move across the space, sometimes by themselves, but often all together. Their movement will reveal a pattern, providing important insights to the story. Going back and forth between the primary image and the second projected plane, they outline and brush past the edges and limits of the projected image. Thus, allowing us to trace the transition between the primary surface and the space created by the gesture of drawing the image on the new surface. They are also performing all kinds of gestures, from testing the tension in the thread for HAND_I to looking through the eyepiece with EYE_I, therefore interfering with the main protagonists’ venture.

The quotes used in the text are in kept in French to maintain and emphasise the distance we feel while reading a text from another era. In French, certain quotes from La Perspective Curieuse have been modified to improve readability. The changes consist mainly in the adjustment of the verb tenses and have been made in respect to the original character as much as possible.

The English translations, shown in grey, provide only a comprehensive idea of the text, but do not entirely follow the form and syntax of the original text.


6th May, 2016. EYE_II is following instructions left by the Minim Jean-François Niceron in La Perspective curieuse, a treatise dating from 1638, investigating its meaning. She aims to find what Niceron intended when he told us to ‘prendre plaisir de voir réussir au-delà de l’effet de ce qu’on a médité’.^[07] «take pleasure in seeing possibilities that lie beyond the effect of that upon which we meditate» She wonders: what kinds of possibilities are lying beyond our expectation? Is it still possible to understand something written 380 years ago? According to an unknown source, even if the meaning was lost with time, fragments of meaning remain embedded in its directives – somewhere between the actual and the possible.

In the second chapter of the treatise, Proposition XI discloses an intricate technique for drawing an anamorphic image on a wall of a corridor. This scenario stems from that proposition and unfolds in three acts.

1. Act one opens with the voice of a distant narrator reciting a part of La Perspective Curieuse, while EYE_II is setting up an apparatus. The first act unpacks the different gestures involved in anamorphic construction. It also discloses how the gaze of the beholder projected in space detaches itself from the body – EYE_II gradually becoming EYE_I and HAND_I. Since Descartes (a contemporary of Niceron), the mind’s eye dominates objective tools of representation as exemplified in the perspectival method by the search for accuracy in depicting the real. Act one ends at the ultimate extension of the technique, where the eye can no longer draw nor the hand see. Only the tension in a thread links EYE_I, the beholder, to the drawing hand, HAND_I.

2. In the second act, through the thread, HAND_I can feel EYE_I, but she can’t see what he perceives. Following the fine thread, and guided by the instruction of EYE_I, HAND_I starts marking points on the projected surface. Point by point, threads appearing in space, emerging from the eyepiece and end, pinned, on a second surface. The dialogue between EYE_I and HAND_I is slowly defining a space. What is the nature of that space? Is it possible to occupy such a space? On the second plane, HAND_I connects and extrapolates the constellation of points into lines. Gradually, a contour appears on the newly formed receptive surface. Act two closes with HAND_I murmuring ‘I am scared – it looks monstrous’.

3. In act three, HAND_I and DRAUGHTSWOMEN are facing the deformed outline. The drawing has reached a four-meter length and one-meter height. The change of scale disrupts the understanding of the final image. Moving closer and withdrawing from the second picture plane HAND_I and DRAUGHTSWOMEN try to make sense of this drawing. While EYE_I at its original position still perceives the primary image, DRAUGHTSWOMEN keep drawing to fill the gap in the drawing.

The story is about how a distant text or image resonates in the present through its materialisation in the movement of the different bodies in space. It also recounts the impossibility of fully grasping the past and the necessity of presence. After all, anamorphic imaging is concerned with the actualisation of the image in the present. The story ends as a failed attempt to capture the elusive possibilities beyond invoked by Niceron, because the significance remains in the gesture itself, in the re-enactment of gesture.


Going back and forth, the researchers needed to withdraw and come closer to the plane of projection, most of the time in group.

The play opens with the voice of the narrator. He is sitting apart from the group and is recounting the instructions from La Perspective Curieuse. EYE_II is also present. She examines and reflects on the treatise out loud. «La science de la perspective est la première en dignité, et la plus excellente de toutes, puisqu’elle s’occupe à considérer les effets de la lumière, qui donne la beauté à toutes les choses sensibles: et que par ce moyen l’on trace si à propos des lignes sur un plan donné, qu’elles expriment des figures solides qui trompent les yeux, et qui déçoivent quasi le jugement et la raison. En effet l’artifice de la peinture consiste particulièrement à faire paraître en relief ce qui n’est figuré qu’à plat.» (Niceron, p.3)

«The science of perspective is the first in dignity, and the most excellent of all, because it encompasses the effect of light, which gives beauty to all perceptible things: this technique allowed the lines we traced on a certain plane to express solid shapes that trick the eye, and almost deceived judgement and reason. Indeed, the artifice of painting consists particularly in making appear in relief what is illustrated on a flat surface.»


Trick and deceive the eye. If perspective is the illusion of depth on a flat surface, then what does anamorphic construction represent?

«Second livre: Auquel sont déclarés les moyens de construire plusieurs sortes de figures appartenant à la vision droite, lesquelles hors de leur point sembleront difformes et sans raisons, et vues de leur point, paraitront bien proportionnées.» (Niceron, p.89)

«Second Book: About the construction of diverse types of figures belonging to the direct vision, and which seen outside their viewpoint would seem deformed and without reason, and when seen from their view point will appear well proportioned.»

According to the second book, anamorphosis is the construction of an image still belonging to the realm of vision. The deformation happens by the displacement of its viewing point.


When, or where, is a chair not a chair anymore?

«Après avoir dressé l’orthographie de la chaise, comme celle-ci EFGH, élever la ligne horizontale fort haut par-dessus la ligne-terre, et y mettre le point principal vis-à-vis du milieu de cette orthographie, et un peu à côté, de l’espace QR, le point de distance [...] elle réussira si difforme, que si elle n’est vue de son point, elle sera méconnaissable.» (Niceron, p.93)

«After having drawn the orthography of the chair, like in EFGH, raise the horizontal line far above the ground line, and put the principal point in the middle of the orthography, and next to the space QR, the distance point. Thus, the image will be completely deformed. When viewed from outside its point it will be unrecognisable.»

The horizon is lifted, and the distant point is closer to the vanishing point. If depth is not receding within the picture plane in the anamorphic image, is depth disappearing, or is it displaced somewhere else?
«Notre principal dessein est de traiter en cette œuvre de ces figures, lesquelles hors de leur point montrent en apparence tout autre chose que ce qu’elles représentent en effet, quand elles sont vues précisément de leur point.» (Niceron, p.89)

«Our principal intention in this treatise is to discuss those figures, which out of their view point appears as something completely other than what they represent in effect, when viewed from  their specific view point.»

Beyond the first appearance of the image would lie the apparition of another image, another signification within the drawing itself when viewed from a different position.


Therefore, following the displacement of the viewing point, the depth is experienced in front of the picture plane, in the space of the real.
«Premiere proposition: Tandis que le même sommet de la pyramide visuelle demeure le même objet, où la même image parait toujours, quelques changements qui arrivent à la base coupée différemment.» (Niceron, p.90)

«First proposition: While the apex of the pyramid remains the same, where the image always appears (the perpendicular plane = base of the pyramid), some changes happen when the base is cut differently.»

If the pyramid of vision is cut diagonally that would allow the occupation of the space of vision. Moreover, if the perpendicular cut in the pyramid of vision represents one moment in time, a diagonal cut could mean different temporal events.

[Because the diagonal cuts through multiple planes of perception it would be possible to capture various moments in time, like the mural painting of St-Francis de Paola by the Minim Friar Emmanuel Maignan in Santa Trinità dei Monti]

Where should we start? Here?

«Car pour lors il faut user du filet, en le faisant tenir dans la perpendiculaire A R où est le point de l’oeil, soit avec un clou, un anneau, ou autrement, de sorte qu’on puisse le mener par tous les points du mur V X Y Z, où l’on veut décrire la perspective, afin d’y marquer les petits carrés semblables au prototype B C D E.» (Niceron, p.123)

«Now, we need to hold a thread perpendicular to where the eye is positioned, with a nail, a ring orany other device to reach all the points on the wall V X Y Z. This is the wall where we would like to draw the perspective, and mark small squares similarly to the prototype B C D E.»

Niceron recommended using a ring attached to a string. But, this eyepiece is unwieldy. It is so massive that it completely prevents any alternative way of looking at the primary image. Now, it is like looking through a keyhole.

My gaze is projected into this little aperture. There is a strange feeling, as if the thickness of the eyepiece made me doubt my own perception.

«[…] au carré du point A, en commençant par la ligne t f i, et en appliquant au point I un bâton ou une corde, afin que le plomb d g, ou b c qu’on y attachera, puisse être mené ou bien arrêté à tel point du bâton i l que l’on voudra.» (Niceron, p.123)

«At the corner of point A, beginning by the line t f i, and by fixing at point I a stick or a thread, attach the weight d g or b c, so it can be brought to any point of the stick i l that we wish.»

[This instruction is problematic in French as well as in English, the correspondence with the language and the reference letters in the original schema from Niceron are obscure]


Moments in the first sequence of movements required to delineate the anamorphic image.

«Il est donc évident que le filet A I L F fait la fonction du rayon optique.» (Niceron, p.124)

«Therefore, it is clear that the thread A I L F acts as an optical ray.»

If the thread corresponds to the trajectory of my sight, I need more tension to straighten the thread.


Looking through the eyepiece.
  I can’t see you, but I can feel you.

The voices convey the illusion that it is coming from multiple directions. The text is repeated and slow, as if the shattering of the image had fragmented the understanding of the text.

Is it you at the end of the thread?

I don’t know where I am.

Follow my voice, the thread will guide us.

I can see a hand.

I remember a hand.

«Or après avoir marqué dans l’espace a F h 8 lignes qui aboutissent au point F, pour représenter celles du prototype BCDE, qui divisent la hauteur B E, il faut ramener le plomb D g au bâton i l, pour décrire la perpendiculaire proche de la figure L à gauche.» (Niceron, p.124)

«After marking the line reaching point F in the space a F h 8, to represent the line of the prototype BCDE, which divides the height B E, we must bring back the weight D g at the stick i L to describe the perpendicular close to the letter L on the left.»«D’où l’on peut voir que sur le mur V X Y Z il n’y a lieu que pour y décrire la perspective de la partie de l’objet comprise dans l’espace q C D r, & qu’il n’y a point d’espace pour y décrire ce qui est compris dans le dernier ordre de carrés B q r E. Donc pour achever l’image B C D E, il faut mettre le plomb en b c & décrire la ligne m n avec le filet sur le plan S Y Z T, afin que le dernier ordre de carrés soit représenté en m a h n.» (Niceron, p.124)

«From what we can see of the wall V X Y Z, there is space only to draw the part of the figure between the space q C D r. There is no space to describe the last part of the image between the square B q r E. Therefore, to complete the image B C D E, we need to install the weight in the axis of b c and draw the line m n with the thread on the plane S Y Z T. Then, the last row of squares will be represented in m a h n.»
I am not sure they are squares. The farthest one is more like an elongated trapezium.

[As time passes, distance increases]

I can’t see it.

«Soit [donc, en la 33 planche] le filet attaché à un anneau au point A, où l’oeil est situé, & que le bâton i l soit perpendiculaire au mur sur lequel on veut commencer la perspective, et qu’on attache encore un autre filet délié b c avec le poids c, et avec un noeud coulant K au bâton i l, afin de pouvoir le hausser ou baisser, et même approcher où d’éloigner le plomb du mur, suivant la nécessité. Le tableau doit être comme une porte qui a deux gonds en y, et plus bas, afin de pouvoir être ouvert et tourné à direction sur la ligne S t, en le mettant perpendiculaire au mur, ou comme l’on voudra.» (Niceron, p.124)

«The thread is fixed at the ring in point A, where the eye is located, and the stick i L. Then, on the stick i L perpendicular to the wall on which the perspective is to be drawn, attach by a slipknot the thread b c with the weight c to be able to raise or lower the stick as well as to bring it forward or further away according to need. The frame must be like a door with two hinges, in y, and one lower, to allow it to be open, or oriented on the line s t by putting it perpendicular to  the wall, as one desires.»

[Anamorphic images act as a hinge between the image and the projected, the real and the imagined, and in this section, the body oscillates between these two types of vision]

Here?

There.

Where?

In that place.

I can’t see.



Hand gestures.

I am lost.

Follow the points.

[The points on the surface are like indices of another body, or as Jean-Luc Nancy would describe, our encounter with the other]^[08]

There is too much space in-between the points.

I am too far.


It is getting blurry, I think I am forgetting.



Position of the body, gestures, and the space between the body and the surface.

I can’t remember the event in-between.
I am scared, it looks monstrous.


Position of the body, gestures, and the space between the body and the surface.

It doesn’t look like anything I know.

Where are you going?

«Lorsque la perspective est achevée de simple traits, le peintre doit tellement y appliquer les couleurs que ce qui doit être vu plus loin soit moins coloré, et plus confus et ce qui doit être vu plus proche, reçoive des couleurs plus vives, et plus distinctes; ce que l’expérience fera mieux concevoir qu’un discours plus long.» (Niceron, p.125)

«When the perspective is completed with the main lines, the painter should apply colour to it accordingly: the elements seen from afar are less colourful and more diffuse, and the elements that are meant to be seen closer, should be more colourful and clear. The experience of it will be better than a longer explanation.»



Published 16th July, 2018.


Notes

[01]   Frascari, Marco. 1991. Monsters of Architecture, Anthropomorphism in Architectural Theory. Savage, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, p.10.

[02]   Carson, Anna. 1986. Eros and the Bittersweet. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, p.152.

[03]   Baltrušaitis, Jurgis. 1977. Anamorphic Art, trans. W.J. Strachan. Cambridge, UK: Chadwyck-Healey, p.36.

[04]   See Thi Phuong-Trâm Nguyen. 2016. ‘Anamorphosis: An Inquiry into the Unknown’ in Drawing Futures, Laura Allen and Caspar Luke Pearson (eds.) London: UCL Press, p.102. For complete information about the Minims and the development of anamorphosis see: Massey, Lyle. 2007. Picturing Space, Displacing Bodies: Anamorphosis in Early Modern Theories of Perspective. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press.

[05]   Niceron, Jean-François. 1638. La Perspective curieuse, p.1.

[06]   Malt, Johanna. 2013. ‘Leaving traces: surface contact in Ponge, Penone and Alÿs’ in Word & Image, Vol.29 No.1 (March 2013), p.94. Available at (accessed 5th May, 2018).

[07]   Niceron, Jean-François. 1638. La Perspective curieuse, p.1.

[08]   Nancy, Jean-Luc. 2008. ‘58 Indices on the Body’, in Corpus. Translated by Richard A. Rand. New York: Fordham University Press, pp.150-60.


Figures

All photographs taken by the author with the assistance of Anna Urikke Andersen and Sevcan Ercan.


Acknowledgements

The workshop was made possible thanks to an invitation from Huda Tayob, Judit Ferencz and Sophie Read from the Drawing Research Doctoral Network at the Bartlett. I am also grateful to the talented PhD students who participated in the drawing of the anamorphic image and with whom I shared my endless interrogations into and doubts about Niceron’s text. This written piece was developed in the module ‘Theorising Practices/Practicing Theory: Art, Architecture and Urbanism’ conducted by Professor Jane Rendell. Her insights, as well as the precious advices and support from Polly Gould and David Roberts, encouraged me to expand my writing about anamorphic images.